Copy source to target management in a data storage system

ABSTRACT

Copy source to target operations may be selectively and preemptively undertaken in advance of source destage operations. In another aspect, logic detects sequential writes including large block writes to point-in-time copy sources. In response, destage tasks on the associated point-in-time copy targets are started which include in one embodiment, stride-aligned copy source to target operations which copy unmodified data from the point-in-time copy sources to the point-in-time copy targets in alignment with the strides of the target. As a result, when write data of write operations is destaged to the point-in-time copy sources, such source destages do not need to wait for copy source to target operations since they have already been performed. In addition, the copy source to target operations may be stride-aligned with respect to the stride boundaries of the point-in-time copy targets. Other features and aspects may be realized, depending upon the particular application.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a computer program product, system, andmethod for copy source to target management in data storage systems.

Description of Related Art

Data storage systems, particularly at the enterprise level, are usuallydesigned to provide a high level of redundancy to reduce the risk ofdata loss in the event of failure of a component of the data storagesystem. Thus, multiple copies of data are frequently stored on multiplesystems which may be geographically dispersed. Accordingly, data from ahost to be stored in the data storage system is typically directed to aprimary device of a primary data storage system at a local site and thenreplicated to one or more secondary devices of secondary data storagesystems which may be geographically remote systems from the primary datastorage system. One primary device can have multiple secondaryrelationships in which data directed to a primary device is replicatedto multiple secondary devices.

A storage controller may control a plurality of storage devices that mayinclude hard disks, tapes, etc. A cache may also be maintained by thestorage controller, where the cache may comprise a high speed storagethat is accessible more quickly in comparison to certain other storagedevices, such as, hard disks, tapes, etc. However, the total amount ofstorage capacity of the cache may be relatively small by comparison tothe storage capacity of certain other storage devices, such as, harddisks, etc., that are controlled by the storage controller. The cachemay be comprised of one or more of random access memory (RAM),non-volatile storage device (NVS), read cache, write cache, etc., thatmay interoperate with each other in different ways. The NVS may becomprised of a battery backed-up random access memory and may allowwrite operations to be performed at a high speed. The storage controllermay manage Input/Output (I/O) requests from networked hosts to theplurality of storage devices.

Caching techniques implemented by the storage controller assist inhiding input/output (I/O) latency by reducing the effective timerequired to read data from or write data to a lower speed memory orstorage device. Thus, the cache is used for rapid access to data stagedfrom external storage to service read data access requests, and toprovide buffering of modified data. Write requests are written to thecache and then written (i.e., destaged) to the external storage devices.To guarantee continued low latency for writes, the data in the NVS mayhave to be drained, that is destaged, so as to ensure that there isalways some empty space for incoming writes.

A Task Control Block (TCB) is a task control data structure in theoperating system kernel containing the information needed to manage aparticular process. Storage controllers may move information to and fromstorage devices, and to and from the cache (including the NVS) by usingTCBs to manage the movement of data. When a write request issues from ahost computer to a storage controller, a TCB may be allocated from theoperating system code. The TCB is used to maintain information about thewrite process from beginning to end as data to be written is passed fromthe host computer through the cache to the storage devices. If the cacheis full, the TCB may be queued until existing data in the cache can bedestaged (i.e., written to storage devices), in order to free up space.The destage operations may involve the moving of information from cacheto storage such as Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) storageand destage TCBs may be allocated for performing the destage operations.

TCBs may be classified on the basis of the task being controlled by theparticular TCB. For example, a “background” TCB is a TCB that controlsan operation which is not directly related to a host input/outputoperation. Thus, one example of a background TCB is a TCB which controlsa destage operation as a background operation not required as part of aparticular host I/O operation. Another example of a background TCB is aTCB which controls a prestage of tracks from storage to cache in whichthe prestage operation is being performed as a background operation notrequired as part of a particular host I/O operation.

Another type of TCB is a “foreground” TCB that controls an operationwhich is typically directly related to a host input/output operation.For example, a foreground TCB may be allocated to perform a destage orstage operation on behalf of a host I/O operation. Thus, a cache miss ona host read typically causes a stage operation controlled by aforeground TCB, to stage one or more tracks from storage to cache tosatisfy the host read operation.

Storage controllers frequently employ a safe data commit process whichscans a cache directory for modified (often referred to as “dirty”) datato be destaged to secondary storage. Such a scan of the cache directorymay be initiated on a periodic basis, such as on the hour, for example.

In data replication systems, data is typically maintained in volumepairs, comprising a primary volume in a primary storage device and acorresponding secondary volume in a secondary storage device thatincludes an identical copy of the data maintained in the primary volume.The primary and secondary volumes are identified by a copy relationshipin which the data of the primary volume, also referred to as the sourcevolume, is copied to the secondary volume, also referred to as thetarget volume. Primary and secondary storage controllers may be used tocontrol access to the primary and secondary storage devices.

A near instantaneous copy of a set of tracks may be generated using apoint-in-time snap copy function such as the IBM® FlashCopy function,for example, which establishes a point-in-time copy relationship betweena set of source tracks and a set of target tracks in a storagecontroller. The set of tracks of the copy relationship may comprise fullvolume or a logical unit (LUN) or parts of a volume, for example. Thus,if the set of tracks is a full volume, for example, the point-in-timesnap copy function creates a “snapshot” of the contents of a sourcevolume as of a particular time in a target volume which may be referredto as the point-in-time snap copy volume or simply point-in-time copyvolume. One version of a point-in-time snap copy function transfers thecontents of the point-in-time copy source volume to the point-in-timecopy target volume in a background copy operation.

Any read operations directed to a track of the point-in-time copy targetvolume which has not yet received the contents of the correspondingtrack of the source volume, are redirected to obtain the contents ofthat track from the source volume. Accordingly, the contents of apoint-in-time copy target volume are immediately available albeitindirectly, before any tracks have actually been transferred to thetarget volume. Conversely, if the host directs an update to a track ofthe source volume before the contents of that track have beentransferred to the point-in-time copy target volume, the contents of thetrack of the source volume are transferred to the point-in-time copytarget volume before the update is permitted to overwrite the contentsof that track of the source volume.

Another version of a point-in-time snap copy function omits thebackground copy operation. Thus, the contents of the source volume arenot transferred to the point-in-time copy volume in a background copyoperation. Accordingly, any read operations directed to a track of thepoint-in-time copy target volume are usually redirected to obtain thecontents of that track from the source volume. However, if the hostdirects an update to a track of the source volume, the unmodifiedcontents of that track of the source volume are transferred to thepoint-in-time copy target volume before the update is permitted tooverwrite the original, unmodified contents of that track of the sourcevolume. Doing such a copy operation at the time of write is known as a“Copy on Write”.

Data may be also copied from source to target when there is a destage tothe source for data written to the cache after the point-in-time copyrelationship was established, and is typically referred to as “Copy Ondestage”. Known copy on destage operations can consume significantsystem resources. More specifically, the copy on destage operation firststages to cache old, unmodified data from the source of thepoint-in-time copy relationship and then destages from cache that old,unmodified data to the target of the point-in-time copy relationship.The destage of new, modified data from the cache to the source is thenallowed to overwrite the old, unmodified day on the source. It isappreciated that such known copy on destage operations for point-in-timecopy relationships can significantly slow destage operations to thesource.

For sequential writes directed to the source of a point-in-time copyrelationship, a “Copy On Destage” operation typically reads the old,unmodified data in a full stride of tracks from source, stages thestride of data to cache, and then destages the data of those tracks tothe target of the point-in-time copy relationship. A stride is a set oftracks, typically sequential tracks, having well defined beginning andending boundaries. Parity data such as RAID (Redundant Array ofIndependent Disks) parity data, for example, is computed based upon thedata to be stored on the tracks within those boundaries and the paritydata for the stride of tracks is also stored within the strideboundaries. Hence, read and write operations which are aligned with theboundaries of one or more strides, facilitate efficiency since read(decoding) and write (encoding) operations may be completed for strideparity data on a stride by stride basis.

Thus copy on destage operations are facilitated if the source and targetstrides are aligned. However, if the source and target strides do notalign then destages on the target typically will not be stride-alignedwith stride boundaries of the target notwithstanding that readoperations from the source may be stride-aligned with the strideboundaries of the source. In various systems, it is difficult to createa configuration where source and target strides are aligned. Hence,sequential I/O performance may be adversely impacted when there arepoint-in-time copy relationships in the storage controlled by a storagecontroller.

SUMMARY

One general aspect of a computing environment employing copy source totarget management in accordance with the present description, isdirected to sequential write detection logic detecting a sequentialwrite operation to modify a set of data in a point-in-time copy source,and copy source to target logic initiating in response to the detecting,a stride-aligned copy source to target operation. In one embodiment, thestride-aligned copy source to target operation includes directing astride-aligned read operation to a point-in-time copy target of thepoint-in-time copy source to force a redirected operation to thepoint-in-time copy source to obtain read data including the set of data,and writing stride-aligned data to the point-in-time copy targetincluding the read set of data.

In another aspect, task control block generation logic generates a taskcontrol block data structure for controlling the copy source to targetoperation, the task control block having at least two input valuesincluding a starting track value and a number of tracks value. Thestride-aligned read operation controlled by the task control block datastructure, is directed to one or more strides of tracks which include atrack identified by the starting track value followed a number of tracksidentified by the number of tracks value.

In another aspect, in which the point-in-time copy source is in aone-to-plural copy relationship with a plurality of point-in-time copytargets, copy source to target logic initiates a sequence of the copysource to target operations including a copy source to target operationof the sequence for each point-in-time copy target of the copyrelationship. Task control block generation logic generates task controlblock data structures, each task control block data structurecontrolling a copy source to target operation of the sequence of copysource to target operations, one at a time.

Still another aspect is directed to sequential write detection logicdetecting a sequential write operation by checking every Nth track ofthe write operation and determining whether the write operation is asequential write operation. In another embodiment, sequential writedetection logic detects a sequential write operation by determiningwhether a host which initiated the write operation has specified thewrite operation as a sequential write operation. In yet anotherembodiment, in which a write operation includes writing tracks of datain cache, sequential write detection logic detects a sequential writeoperation by inspecting previously written tracks in the cache todetermine if the tracks of the write operation are in sequence. In stillanother embodiment, the sequential write detection logic detects asequential write operation by determining when the write operation tocache is complete and inspecting written tracks in the cache todetermine if the tracks written to cache are in sequence.

In another aspect of the present description, safe data commit logicinitiates a safe data commit scan of cache to identify tracks ofmodified data to destage to storage and bypasses destaging of the tracksof modified data in cache of the sequential write operation. Taskcontrol block generation logic generates a task control block datastructure for controlling the copy source to target operation, so thatthe stride-aligned read operation of the copy source to target operationincludes tracks of the point-in-time copy target corresponding to thebypassed tracks in cache.

Another general aspect of a computing environment employing copy sourceto target management in accordance with the present description, isdirected to preemptive condition monitoring logic determining whetherconditions for preemptive copy source to target operations are presentfor modified data in cache, and copy source to target logic which, inresponse to a determination that conditions for preemptive copy sourceto target operations are present, preemptively and selectivelyinitiating a copy source to target operation. In one embodiment, thecopy source to target operation includes reading the point-in-time copysource to obtain read data including the unmodified set of data, andwriting the unmodified set of data to the point-in-time copy target.Safe data commit logic initiates a scan of cache to identify tracks ofmodified data in cache to destage to storage.

In one embodiment, preemptive condition monitoring logic determineswhether conditions for preemptive copy source to target operation arepresent an interval of time prior to initiation of a safe data commitscan of cache to identify tracks of modified data in cache to destage tostorage. In another embodiment, preemptive condition monitoring logicdetermines whether conditions for preemptive copy source to targetoperation are present as a function of whether a point-in-time copyrelationship from the point-in-time copy source to the point-in-timecopy target is persistent or the point-in-time of the copy relationshiphas been incremented. In one embodiment, preemptive condition monitoringlogic determines that conditions for preemptive copy source to targetoperation are present if the point-in-time copy relationship from thepoint-in-time copy source to the point-in-time copy target ispersistent.

In yet another embodiment in which writing a modified set of data incache includes writing modified data in tracks, preemptive conditionmonitoring logic determines whether conditions for preemptive copysource to target operation are present as a function of whether thenumber of tracks of modified data in cache which correspond to apoint-in-time copy source, exceeds a threshold value. In one embodiment,preemptive condition monitoring logic determines that conditions forpreemptive copy source to target operation are present if the number oftracks of modified data in cache which correspond to a point-in-timecopy source, exceeds the threshold value.

Yet another embodiment is directed to preemptive scan logic which, inresponse to a determination that conditions for preemptive copy sourceto target operation are present, initiates a scan of tracks of modifieddata in cache to identify tracks of modified data which a) correspond toa point-in-time copy source, and b) have not yet been copied to acorresponding point-in-time copy target of the point-in-time source. Thepreemptive scan logic selectively and preemptively causes the copysource to target logic to initiate a copy source to target operation foridentified tracks in cache meeting these conditions.

Still another embodiment is directed to sequential write detection logicdetecting if identified tracks in cache are sequential. Copy source totarget logic, in response to detection of identified sequential tracks,preemptively and selectively directs a stride-aligned read operation toa point-in-time copy target of the point-in-time copy source. Thestride-aligned read operation to a point-in-time copy target forces aredirected read operation to the point-in-time copy source to obtainunmodified data corresponding to the identified sequential tracks ofmodified data in cache. Copy source to target logic writesstride-aligned tracks of sequential data to the point-in-time copytarget including the obtained unmodified data corresponding to theidentified sequential tracks of modified data in cache. Yet anotherembodiment is directed to preemptive scan logic bypassing scanning ofremaining tracks corresponding to the stride-aligned read operation.

Another aspect of copy source to target management in accordance withthe present description is directed to employment in a system having ahost configured to initiate input/output operations, a storagecontroller having a processor and a cache, and storage controlled by thestorage controller, the storage including a point-in-time copy sourceand a point-in-time copy target.

Implementations of the described techniques may include hardware, amethod or process, or computer software on a computer-accessible medium.Other features and aspects may be realized, depending upon theparticular application.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of a computing environment employingcopy source to target management in a data storage system in accordancewith one aspect of the present description.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a data storage system employing copysource to target management in the computing environment of FIG. 1.

FIGS. 3A and 3B depict two examples of copy source to target operationswhich may be utilized in a computing environment employing copy sourceto target management in a data storage system in accordance with oneaspect of the present description.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of a host in the computing environment ofFIG. 1.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of sequential write copy source to targetoperations in accordance with one aspect of the present description.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of target destage logic in the storagesystem of FIG. 2.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example of a task control block data structure forcontrolling copy source to target operations in accordance with oneembodiment of the present description.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example of safe data commit scan operations inaccordance with one aspect of the present description.

FIG. 9 illustrates an example of determination of preemptive conditionsfor copy source to target operations in accordance with one aspect ofthe present description.

FIG. 10 depicts an example of a preemptive copy source to target scan inaccordance with one aspect of the present description.

FIG. 11 illustrates a computer embodiment employing copy source totarget management in a data storage system in accordance with thepresent description.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Absent copy source to target (CST) management in accordance with thepresent description, a known “Copy on Destage” operation can causesignificant degradation in system performance under various conditions.For example, as explained above, a known copy on destage operation canconsume significant system resources. More specifically, the copy ondestage operation first stages to cache old, unmodified data from thesource of the point-in-time copy relationship and then destages fromcache that old, unmodified data to the target of the point-in-time copyrelationship. The destage of new, modified data on the source is thenallowed to overwrite the old, unmodified day on the source. It isappreciated that such copy on destage operations can significantly slowdestage operations to the source. Hence, system performance may bedegraded when cache contains modified data for tracks which belong topoint-in-time copy relationships.

As explained in greater detail below, in one aspect of copy source totarget (CST) management in accordance with the present description, copysource to target operations may be preemptively undertaken in advance ofsource destage operations. As a result, the copying of old, unmodifieddata from the source to the target has already been accomplished by thetime source destage operations are initiated. Consequently the sourcedestage operations need not be delayed by waiting for the copying ofold, unmodified data from the source to the target to be completed.

In another aspect of copy source to target (CST) management inaccordance with the present description, preemptive copy source totarget operations may be selectively undertaken in advance of sourcedestage operations. For example, such preemptive copy source to targetoperations may be selectively undertaken when it is determined thatconditions for preemptive copy source to target operations are presentsuch that preemptive copy source to target operations may preserveneeded data before it is overwritten by source destage operations.Conversely, such preemptive copy source to target operations may bebypassed when it is determined that conditions for preemptive copysource to target operations are not present such that preemptive copysource to target operations are not needed to preserve data before it isoverwritten by source destage operations. As a result, systemperformance may be improved by preemptive copy source to targetoperations when needed but not degraded when such preemptive copy sourceto target operations are not needed.

As previously noted, for destages of sequential writes to the copysource, known “Copy On Destage” operations read a stride from the copysource and then destage those tracks to the copy target. If the sourceand target strides align, efficiency is facilitated. However, if thesource and target strides do not align then destages on the targetfrequently will not be full strides in known copy on destage operationswhich can significantly adversely affect performance. For example, togenerate new strides to write to the target, additional data from thesource or target may be needed to complete the strides for the target.

In another aspect of the present description, logic is configured todetect sequential writes including large block writes directed topoint-in-time copy sources and in response, start destage tasks on theassociated point-in-time copy targets. As explained in greater detailbelow, the destage tasks include in one embodiment, stride-aligned copysource to target operations which copy unmodified data from thepoint-in-time copy sources to the point-in-time copy targets prior tooverwriting of the unmodified data in the point-in-time copy sources insubsequent copy source destaging operations. As a result, when thesequential write data of the sequential write operations are destaged tothe point-in-time copy sources, such source destages do not need to waitfor copy source to target operations since they have already beenperformed. In addition, the copy source to target operations arestride-aligned with respect to the stride boundaries of thepoint-in-time copy targets. As a result, the sequential write operationsto the point-in-time copy sources in source destage operations and thesequential write operations to the point-in-time copy targets in targetdestage operations, are both stride-aligned with respect to therespective stride boundaries of the source and target volumes. Hence,degradation of sequential I/O performance when there are point-in-timecopies in the storage controller, may be reduced or eliminated. Otheraspects and advantages may be realized, depending upon the particularapplication.

A system of one or more computers may be configured for copy source totarget management in a data storage system in accordance with thepresent description, by virtue of having software, firmware, hardware,or a combination of them installed on the system that in operationcauses or cause the system to perform copy source to target operationsin accordance with the present description. For example, one or morecomputer programs may be configured to perform copy source to targetmanagement in a data storage system by virtue of including instructionsthat, when executed by data processing apparatus, cause the apparatus toperform the actions.

The operations described herein are performed by logic which isconfigured to perform the operations either automatically orsubstantially automatically with little or no system operatorintervention, except where indicated as being performed manually. Thus,as used herein, the term “automatic” includes both fully automatic, thatis operations performed by one or more hardware or software controlledmachines with no human intervention such as user inputs to a graphicaluser selection interface. As used herein, the term “automatic” furtherincludes predominantly automatic, that is, most of the operations (suchas greater than 50%, for example) are performed by one or more hardwareor software controlled machines with no human intervention such as userinputs to a graphical user selection interface, and the remainder of theoperations (less than 50%, for example) are performed manually, that is,the manual operations are performed by one or more hardware or softwarecontrolled machines with human intervention such as user inputs to agraphical user selection interface to direct the performance of theoperations.

Many of the functional elements described in this specification havebeen labeled as “logic,” in order to more particularly emphasize theirimplementation independence. For example, a logic element may beimplemented as a hardware circuit comprising custom VLSI circuits orgate arrays, off-the-shelf semiconductors such as logic chips,transistors, or other discrete components. A logic element may also beimplemented in programmable hardware devices such as field programmablegate arrays, programmable array logic, programmable logic devices or thelike.

A logic element may also be implemented in software for execution byvarious types of processors. A logic element which includes executablecode may, for instance, comprise one or more physical or logical blocksof computer instructions which may, for instance, be organized as anobject, procedure, or function. Nevertheless, the executables of anidentified logic element need not be physically located together, butmay comprise disparate instructions stored in different locations which,when joined logically together, comprise the logic element and achievethe stated purpose for the logic element.

Indeed, executable code for a logic element may be a single instruction,or many instructions, and may even be distributed over several differentcode segments, among different programs, among different processors, andacross several memory devices. Similarly, operational data may beidentified and illustrated herein within logic elements, and may beembodied in any suitable form and organized within any suitable type ofdata structure. The operational data may be collected as a single dataset, or may be distributed over different locations including overdifferent storage devices.

Implementations of the described techniques may include hardware, amethod or process, or computer software on a computer-accessible medium.FIGS. 1, 2 illustrate an embodiment of a computing environment employingcopy source to target management in a data storage system in accordancewith the present description. A plurality of hosts 1 a, 1 b . . . 1 nmay submit Input/Output (I/O) requests over a network 6 to one or moredata storage devices or systems 2 a, 2 b, 2 (FIG. 2) to read or writedata. The hosts 1 a, 1 b . . . 1 n may be separate physical devices ormay be virtual devices implemented using assigned resources ofpartitions of a server, for example. In a similar manner, the datastorage system or systems 2 (FIG. 2), 2 a, 2 b may be separate physicaldevices or may be virtual devices implemented using assigned resourcesof partitions one or more servers, for example.

In the illustrated embodiment, the data storage system 2 a is a primarydata storage system and the data storage system 2 b is a secondary datastorage system in which data stored on the primary data storage system 2a by a host is mirrored to the secondary data storage system 2 b.Although the embodiment depicted in FIG. 1 depicts a single secondarydata storage system 2 b, it is appreciated that a primary data storagesystem 2 a may have more than one secondary data storage system.

Each data storage system 2 (FIG. 2), 2 a, 2 b includes a storagecontroller or control unit 4 (FIG. 2), 4 a, 4 b, respectively, whichaccesses data stored in a plurality of data storage units of storage 10,10 a, 10 b, respectively. Each data storage unit of the storage 10, 10a, 10 b may comprise any suitable device capable of storing data, suchas physical hard disks, solid state drives, etc., known in the art.Thus, in one embodiment, the storage 10, 10 a, 10 b may be comprised ofone or more sequential access storage devices, such as hard disk drivesand magnetic tape or may include non-sequential access storage devicessuch as solid state drives (SSD), for example. Each device of storage 10(FIG. 2), 10 a, 10 b may comprise a single sequential or non-sequentialaccess device for data storage or may comprise an array of devices fordata storage, such as a Just a Bunch of Disks (JBOD), Direct AccessStorage Device (DASD), Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)array, virtualization device, tape storage, flash memory, etc.

In certain embodiments, for example, storage units may be disks that areconfigured as a Redundant Array of Independent Disk (RAID) storage ranks11 a (FIG. 2), . . . 11 n, in which one or more RAID storage rank is anarray of hard disks in a RAID configuration to facilitate data recoveryin the event of loss of a hard disk. The storage units of the storage10, 10 a, 10 b may also be other types of storage such as solid statedrives in a RAID configuration to facilitate data recovery in the eventof loss of a solid state drive. The storage units of the storage 10(FIG. 2), 10 a, 10 b may be configured to store data in subunits of datastorage such as volumes, extents, strides, tracks, etc.

Each storage controller 4 (FIG. 2), 4 a, 4 b includes a CPU complex 12(FIG. 2) including processor resources provided by one or moreprocessors or central processing units, each having a single or multipleprocessor cores. In this embodiment, a processor core contains thecomponents of a CPU involved in executing instructions, such as anarithmetic logic unit (ALU), floating point unit (FPU), and/or variouslevels of cache (such as L1 and L2 cache), for example. It isappreciated that a processor core may have other logic elements inaddition to or instead of those mentioned herein.

Each storage controller 4 (FIG. 2), 4 a, 4 b further has a memory 20that includes a storage manager 24 for managing storage operationsincluding writing data to or reading data from an associated storage 10(FIG. 2), 10 a, 10 b in response to an I/O data request from a host ormirrored data from another data storage system. A cache 28 of the memory20 may comprise one or more of different types of memory, such as RAMs,write caches, read caches, NVS, etc. The different types of memory thatcomprise the cache may interoperate with each other. The CPU complex 12of each storage controller 4 (FIG. 2), 4 a, 4 b may have multipleclusters of processors, each cluster having its own assigned memory 20,storage manager 24, cache 28, etc. The processing and memory resourcesassigned each cluster may be physical, virtual, shared, transferrable ordedicated, depending upon the particular application.

Writes from the hosts 1 a . . . 1 n may initially be written to a cache28 of the primary storage controller 4 a and then later destaged to thestorage 10 a of the primary storage system 2 a. Read requests from thehosts 1 a . . . 1 n may be satisfied from a cache 28 of the primarystorage controller 4 a if the corresponding information is available inthat cache 28, otherwise the information is staged from the storage 10 ato the cache 28 and then provided to the requesting host 1 a . . . 1 n.

Writes from the hosts 1 a . . . 1 n initially written to the cache 28and the storage 10 a of the primary storage controller 4 a, may bemirrored by a storage manager 24 of the primary storage controller 4 ato the secondary storage controller 4 b. Mirrored data may initially bewritten to a cache 28 of the secondary storage controller 4 b and thenlater destaged to the storage 10 b controlled by the secondary storagecontroller 4 b of the secondary storage system 2 b.

The memory 20 of the storage controller 4 (FIG. 2), 4 a, 4 b includes acache directory 30 which identifies tracks having data stored in thecache 28 as a result of a prestage or stage operation which transfersthe data of a track stored in the storage 10 (FIG. 2), 10 a, 10 b to thecache 28, or as a result of a host write operation which writes data tothe cache 28 for subsequent destaging to the corresponding track ortracks of the storage 10 (FIG. 2), 10 a, 10 b. In the illustratedembodiment, the cache directory 30 is implemented in the form of a knowndata structure which is a hash table of all tracks in cache 28. Eachtrack is hashed into a slot of the cache directory 30 which includes atrack identification (ID) and an indication as to whether the data ofthe track is “dirty”, that is, has not yet been safely destaged to thecorresponding track of the storage 10 (FIG. 2), 10 a, 10 b. Multipletracks hashed into a slot are linked together. It is appreciated that asuitable cache directory may be implemented using other types of datastructures.

Operations including I/O operations of the storage manager 24, includingcache write, stage, prestage and destage operations, for example,utilize Task Control Blocks (TCBs) 32 of the memory 20. Each TCB is adata structure in the operating system kernel containing the informationneeded to manage a particular process. Storage controllers may moveinformation to and from storage, and to and from the cache by using TCBsto manage the movement of data. When a write request issues from a hostto a storage controller or data is mirrored from the primary datastorage system to a secondary data storage system, a TCB may beallocated from the operating system code. The TCB is used to maintaininformation about the write process from beginning to end as data to bewritten is passed from the source through the cache to the storage. Ifthe cache is full, the TCB may be queued until existing data in thecache can be destaged (i.e., written to storage), in order to free upspace.

In one aspect of the present description, the storage manager 24includes target destage logic 33 which is configured to detectsequential writes including large block writes to point-in-time copysource volumes and in response, start destage tasks on the associatedpoint-in-time copy targets. As explained in greater detail below, thedestage tasks include in one embodiment, stride-aligned copy source totarget operations which copy unmodified data from the point-in-time copysources to the point-in-time copy targets prior to overwriting of theunmodified data in the point-in-time copy sources in subsequent copysource destaging operations.

In another aspect of the present description, the target destage logic33 is further configured to selectively and preemptively perform copysource to target operations, depending upon conditions which indicatewhether such copy source to target operations are appropriate or havebeen obviated by other occurrences. For example, these conditions inwhich copy source to target operations remain appropriate to copyunmodified data from a point-in-time copy source to a point-in-time copytarget prior to overwriting of such unmodified data due to a writeoperation directed to the point-in-time copy source, include instancesin which a safe data commit scan has been initiated or is imminent.Other examples of conditions for preemptive copy source to targetoperations include the presence in cache of tracks belonging to apersistent point-in-time copy relationship in contrast to a copyrelationship which has been incremented such that prior uncopied data isno longer needed to be preserved prior to overwriting in a destageoperation to the point-in-time copy source of the relationship.

Another example in which conditions for preemptive copy source to targetoperations may be present include instances in which the number oftracks of modified data in cache which belong to a point-in-time copyrelationship, exceeds a threshold which has been set. When one or moreof these or other conditions are met, preemptive copy source to targetoperations may be particularly useful to improve system performance bypreemptively preserving unmodified data by copying it from thepoint-in-time copy source to the point-in-time copy target prior to thedata being overwritten in destage operations to the copy sources. Hence,the subsequent source destage operations need not wait for a copy sourceto target operation to preserve unmodified data before it is overwrittenby the source destage since the preservation of the unmodified data hasalready been completed preemptively. Conversely, if conditions forpreemptive copy source to target operations are determined not to bepresent, preemptive copy source to target operations may be bypassed.

The storage manager 24 further includes a data replication logic 35(FIG. 2) which is configured to generate point-in-time copies pursuantto a point-in-time copy relationship 37 between a point-in-time copysource and a point-in-time copy target. FIG. 3A shows an example of apoint-in-time copy relationship established between a set of sourcetracks of a point-in-time copy source such as the source 50 of thestorage 10 (FIG. 2) and a corresponding set of target tracks of apoint-in-time copy target such as the target 54 which may also be in thestorage 10 controlled by a storage controller such as the controller 4(FIG. 2). Tracks of a point-in-time copy relationship may comprise forexample, a full volume or logical unit (LUN), parts of a volume, orother units or subunits of storage.

In a typical point-in-time copy relationship, the data is usually notcopied from source 50 to target 54 when the relationship is established.Instead, data can be copied from source 50 to target 54 using abackground copy process or in connection with a destage on the source 50of data written to cache after the point-in-time copy relationship wasestablished. One known copy operation which copies data from a source toa target of a point-in-time copy relationship in connection with destageoperation to be performed on the source, is often referred to as “CopyOn Destage”. Absent copy source to target management in accordance withthe present description, a known “Copy on Destage” operation can causesignificant degradation in system performance under various conditions.As explained in greater detail below, in one aspect of copy source totarget management in accordance with the present description, targetdestage logic 33 (FIG. 2) selectively and preemptively undertakes copysource to target operations in advance of source destage operations. Asa result, the copying of old, unmodified data from the source to thetarget has already been accomplished by the time source destageoperations are initiated. Consequently the source destage operationsneed not be delayed by waiting for the copying of old, unmodified datafrom the source to the target to be completed.

Another example of copy source to target management in accordance withthe present description is directed to sequential writes intended for apoint-in-time copy source. Known copy on destage operations performed inconnection with sequential write operations, typically read a stride oftracks of old, unmodified data from source and then destage those tracksto the target. Efficiency in such operations is facilitated if thesource and target strides are in alignment. However, if the source andtarget strides do not align, then destages of the old, unmodified dataon the target will typically not be in full strides, thereby adverselyaffecting system performance. It is noted that in many systems, it maybe difficult to configure the system so that both source and targetstrides are aligned. As a result, system performance may be degradedwhen modified data is written to tracks in cache when affectpoint-in-time copy relationships.

In one aspect of the present description, the target destage logic 33(FIG. 2) detects sequential writes including large block writes topoint-in-time copy source volumes and in response, starts destage taskson the associated point-in-time copy targets. The destage tasks includein one embodiment, stride-aligned copy source to target operations whichcopy unmodified data from the point-in-time copy sources to thepoint-in-time copy targets prior to overwriting of the unmodified datain the point-in-time copy sources in subsequent copy source destagingoperations.

The data replication logic 35 (FIG. 2) of the storage manager 24 isfurther configured to synchronously (or asynchronously in someembodiments) generate copies of the primary volume1 (FIG. 1) of theprimary data storage system 2 a as a secondary volume2 (FIG. 1) of thesecondary data storage systems as represented by the secondary datastorage system 2 b. A primary-secondary pair of volumes, volume1,volume2 are in an synchronous copy or mirror relationship 37 such thatupdates to the primary volume1 are synchronously mirrored to eachsecondary volume2. Such mirroring may also be performed asynchronouslyin some embodiments.

In the configuration illustrated in FIG. 1, the storage controller 4 aand the data storage drive 10 a have been configured as a primarystorage control unit and the primary storage, respectively, of a primarydata storage system 2 a. Similarly, the storage controller 4 b and itsdata storage drive 10 b have been configured as a secondary storagecontrol unit and a secondary storage, respectively, of a secondary datastorage system 2 b. Hence, in the configuration depicted in FIG. 1, thestorage controller 4 a will be referred to as a primary storagecontroller or control unit 4 a, and the data storage drive 10 a will bereferred to as a primary storage drive 10 a. Similarly, the storagecontroller or control unit 4 b will be referred to as a secondarystorage controller or control unit 4 b and the data storage drive 10 bwill be referred to as a secondary data storage drive 10 b. In thisembodiment, there may be multiple secondary data storages such that acopy relation can be in a one to many relationship, which is alsoreferred to as a multi-target relationship.

In a particular copy relationship, the source unit is often referred toas the primary and the target unit is often referred to as thesecondary. Replication relationships are defined between storage unitsof the primary data storage drive 10 a and the secondary data storagedrives 10 b. Notwithstanding a reference to the data storage drive 10 aas “primary” and the data storage 10 b as “secondary,” particularstorage units of the data storages 10 a, 10 b, may play both a primary(or source role) and a secondary (or target role) depending upon theparticular copy relationship.

In one embodiment, the storage devices 10, 10 a, 10 b, may be comprisedof one or more sequential access storage devices, such as hard diskdrives and magnetic tape or may include non-sequential access storagedevices such as solid state drives (SSD), for example. Each storagedevice 10, 10 a, 10 b, may comprise a single sequential ornon-sequential access storage device or may comprise an array of storagedevices, such as a Just a Bunch of Disks (JBOD), Direct Access StorageDevice (DASD), Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) array,virtualization device, tape storage, flash memory, etc.

The storage manager 24 further includes safe data commit logic 60 whichperiodically scans the cache directory 30 for dirty data to be destagedto storage 10 (FIG. 2), 10 a, 10 b (FIG. 1). The safe data commitprocess permits an operator to be assured that anything written to cache28 prior to the safe data commit scan start time has been successfullydestaged and safely stored on the storage 10 (FIG. 2), 10 a, 10 b (FIG.1).

In the illustrated embodiment, the storage manager 24 including thetarget destage logic 33, is depicted as software stored in the memory 20and executed by the CPU complex 12. However, it is appreciated that thelogic functions of the storage manager 24 may be implemented ashardware, software, firmware or combinations of one or more thereof,depending upon the particular application.

The storage manager 24 (FIG. 2) in one embodiment may store data in thecache 28 and transfer data between the cache 28 and storage 10 (FIG. 2),10 a, 10 b (FIG. 1) in tracks. In writing a track to cache, a TCBallocates one or more segments of cache storage to write the track.Similarly, the storage manager 24 (FIG. 2) in one embodiment maytransfer data from the primary storage drive 10 a (FIG. a) to asecondary storage drive 10 b in tracks. As used herein, the term trackmay refer to a subunit of data or storage of a disk storage unit, asolid state storage unit or other types of storage units. In addition totracks, storage units may have other subunits of storage or data such asa bit, byte, word, segment, page, block (such as a Logical Block Address(LBA)), cylinder, segment, extent, volume, stride, logical device, etc.or any portion thereof, or other subunits suitable for transfer orstorage. Accordingly, the size of subunits of data processed in cachewrite and safe data commit processes in accordance with the presentdescription may vary, depending upon the particular application. Thus,as used herein, the term “track” refers to any suitable subunit of datastorage or transfer.

The system components 1 a (FIG. 1), 1 b . . . 1 n, 4 (FIG. 2), 6 areconnected to a network 6 which enables communication among thesecomponents. Thus, the network includes a fabric which may comprise aStorage Area Network (SAN), Local Area Network (LAN), Intranet, theInternet, Wide Area Network (WAN), peer-to-peer network, wirelessnetwork, arbitrated loop network, etc. Communication paths from thestorage subsystems to the hosts 1 a, 1 b, . . . 1 n may be based upon aparticular host attachment protocol such as Fibre Connection (FICON),for example. Other communication paths of the fabric may comprise forexample, a Fibre Channel arbitrated loop configuration, a serial looparchitecture or a bus interface, such as a Peripheral ComponentInterconnect (PCI) interface such as a PCI-Express interface. Thecommunication paths of the fabric may also be part of an Ethernetnetwork, for example, such that each node has an individual network(internet protocol) address. Other types of communication paths may beutilized, such as a modem telephone path, wireless network, etc.,depending upon the particular application.

Communication software associated with the communication paths includesinstructions and other software controlling communication protocols andthe operation of the communication hardware in accordance with thecommunication protocols, if any. It is appreciated that othercommunication path protocols may be utilized, depending upon theparticular application.

A typical host as represented by the host 1 a of FIG. 4 includes a CPUcomplex 202 and a memory 204 having an operating system 206 and anapplication 208 that cooperate to read data from and write data updatesto the storage 10 (FIG. 2), 10 a, 10 b via a storage controller 4, 4 a,4 b. An example of a suitable operating system is the z/OS operatingsystem. It is appreciated that other types of operating systems may beemployed, depending upon the particular application.

FIG. 5 depicts one example of operations of a copy source to targetlogic 214 (FIG. 6) of the target destage logic 33 in connection with asequential write operation for writing sequential data to apoint-in-time copy source. In this embodiment, the copy source to targetlogic 214 is configured to perform a copy source to target operation inwhich original, unmodified sequential data is read from thepoint-in-time copy source 50 (FIG. 3B) before the original, unmodifieddata of the source 50 is overwritten by a subsequent source destageoperation which destages the sequential write data of the writeoperation from the cache 28 (FIG. 2) to the point-in-time copy source 50(FIG. 3B). The original, unmodified data read from the point-in-timecopy source 50 is destaged to the point-in-time copy target 54 inalignment with strides of the target 54. A subsequent source destageoperation destages the sequential write data of the write operation fromthe cache 28 (FIG. 2) to the point-in-time copy source 50, again inalignment with the strides of the source 50. The copy source to targetoperation is in this embodiment, controlled by a task control block datastructure, an example of which is the copy source to target TCB 218 ofFIG. 7.

As explained in greater detail below, in this embodiment, there arevarious conditions in which a stride-aligned copy source to targetoperation such as that depicted in FIG. 3B may have applicability. Theseconditions include detecting a write operation and determining whetherthe write operation is a sequential write operation to eventually writeto sequential tracks of the point-in-time copy source.

In the illustrated embodiment, the copy source to target logic 214 isconfigured to detect (block 224, FIG. 5) a write operation to the cache28 (FIG. 2). For a detected write operation, the copy source to targetlogic 214 is further configured to determine (block 230, FIG. 5) whetherthe detected write operation is directed to a point-in-time copy sourcesuch as the source 50 of FIG. 3B. For a write operation directed to apoint-in-time copy source, the copy source to target logic 214 furtherincludes sequential write detection logic 234 (FIG. 6) which isconfigured to detect (block 240, FIG. 5) whether the detected writeoperation is a sequential write operation.

If the detected write operation is determined (block 230, FIG. 5) not tobe directed to a point-in-time copy source or is detected (block 240,FIG. 5) to not be a sequential write operation, the detected writeoperation may subsequently be completed (block 244, FIG. 5) withoutperforming a stride-aligned copy source to target operation similar tothat depicted in FIG. 3B. For example, the write data of the writeoperation may be written to cache and subsequently destaged to storagewithout performing a stride-aligned copy source to target operationsimilar to that depicted in FIG. 3B. However, as described below inconnection with FIGS. 9 and 10 and another aspect of the presentdescription, a non-sequential copy source to target operation maynonetheless be preemptively performed if various conditions are met.

It is appreciated that there are a variety of known techniques fordetermining whether a write operation is a sequential write operation ofa sequence of write operations in which the sequence of write operationswrite data to sequential tracks. In addition, techniques for determiningwhether a write operation is a sequential write operation may bemodified as appropriate in accordance with the present description.

In one embodiment, the sequential write detection logic 234 (FIG. 6) isconfigured to periodically check whether the write operation is asequential write operation. For example, the sequential write detectionlogic 234 (FIG. 6) may be configured to check on every Nth track beingwritten and determine whether the write operation is a sequential writeoperation. The Nth track may be selected, for example, to coincide withthe last track of the stride of the point-in-time copy source to whichthe write operation is ultimately directed.

As another example, the sequential write detection logic 234 (FIG. 6)may be configured to determine whether a host such as a host 1 a (FIG.4) for example, which initiated the write operation, has specified thewrite operation as a sequential write operation. As another example, thesequential write detection logic 234 (FIG. 6) may be configured toinspect previously written tracks in the cache to determine if thetracks of the write operation are sequential. In this manner, sequentialwrite operations which write a large block of modified data in cache maybe detected by the sequential write detection logic 234. In yet anotherexample, the sequential write detection logic 234 (FIG. 6) may beconfigured to determine when the write to cache is complete for a writeoperation and inspect written tracks in the cache to determine if thetracks written to cache are in sequence.

If the detected write operation is determined (block 230, FIG. 5) to bedirected to a point-in-time copy source and is detected (block 240, FIG.5) to be a sequential write operation, a stride-aligned copy source totarget operation similar to that depicted in FIG. 3B may be performedprior to completing (block 244, FIG. 5) the detected write operation. Inthe illustrated embodiment, a stride-aligned copy source to targetoperation may be controlled by a task control block data structure suchas the TCB 218 of FIG. 7, for example. Accordingly, a task control blockgeneration logic 250 (FIG. 6) of the copy source to target logic 214, isconfigured to generate a task control block data structure forcontrolling the stride-aligned copy source to target operation of FIG.3B. In the illustrated embodiment, the task control block 218 has aplurality of fields 254, 258 configured to store at least two inputvalues including a starting track value S (field 254) and a number oftracks value N (field 258) to identify the sequence of tracks of astride-aligned copy source to target operation.

The copy source to target logic 214 (FIG. 6) is configured to initiate astride-aligned copy source to target operation (FIG. 3B) using a taskcontrol block 218 (FIG. 7) wherein the stride-aligned copy source totarget operation includes directing (block 260, FIG. 5) a stride alignedread operation 264 (FIG. 3B) to a point-in-time copy target 54 (FIG. 3B)of the point-in-time copy source 50 (FIG. 3B). Thus, the read operation264 is aligned with the stride boundaries of the strides of thepoint-in-time copy target 54. However, the data of the read operationhas not yet been copied to the point-in-time copy target 54.Accordingly, the stride-aligned read operation 264 to the target 54forces a redirected read operation 268 (FIG. 3B) to the point-in-timecopy source 50 to obtain unmodified read data including the set of dataidentified by the starting track value S (field 254, FIG. 7) and thenumber of tracks value N (field 258, FIG. 7)) for a sequence of tracksof original, unmodified data from the point-in-time copy source 50 (FIG.3B). The sequence of tracks of the source 50 containing the unmodifieddata correspond to the tracks of modified data written to cache by thesequential write operation. However, because the read operation 264 isstride-aligned with the strides of the point-in-time copy target 54, thedata being read by the redirected read operation 268 includes not onlythe read data identified by the TCB 218 (FIG. 7) which identifies thestarting track value S (field 254, FIG. 7) and the number of tracksvalue N (field 258, FIG. 7)) for a sequence of tracks of original,unmodified data to be read, but may also include any additional tracksof a stride before or after the tracks identified by the TCB 218 toensure that the tracks of the redirected read operation 268 may bereadily stride aligned with the tracks of the point-in-time copy target54 when the read data is subsequently destage to the target 54.

The unmodified data read from the source 50 pursuant to the redirectedread operation 268 is staged as represented by the stage operation 270(FIG. 3B) in the cache 28 by the copy source to target logic 214. Thecopy source to target logic 214 is further configured to write (block274, FIG. 5), as represented by the destage operation 280 (FIG. 3B), theunmodified data read from the source 50, to the target 54 from the cache28. The data read from the source 50 and destaged to the target 54 willbe stride-aligned with respect to the strides of the target 54 since theredirected read operation 268 was stride aligned with the tracks of thepoint-in-time copy target 54.

In some embodiments, the point-in-time copy source may be in a one toplural point-in-time copy relationship with multiple point-in-time copytargets. Accordingly, in one embodiment, the copy source to target logic214 (FIG. 6) may be further configured to determine (block 284, FIG. 5)whether the source is in a one to plural point-in-time copy relationshipwith multiple point-in-time copy targets. If so, the copy source totarget logic 214 (FIG. 6) may be further configured to determine (block288, FIG. 5) whether a stride-aligned copy source to target operationhas been completed for each target of the one-to-plural point-in-timecopy relationship. If not, the copy source to target logic 214 (FIG. 6)may be further configured to initiate and repeat a stride-aligned copysource to target operation (blocks 260, 274) for each such target of therelationship.

In this manner, a sequence of stride-aligned copy source to targetoperations are performed including a copy source to target operation ofthe sequence for each point-in-time copy target of the copyrelationship. Accordingly, task control block generation logic 250 (FIG.6) may be configured to generate a sequence of task control block datastructures similar to the TCB 218 (FIG. 7), each task control block datastructure of the sequence controlling a stride-aligned copy source totarget operation of the sequence of copy source to target operations,one at a time.

Once it is determined (block 284, FIG. 5) that the detected writeoperation is not directed to a source in multiple target copyrelationship, or it is determined (block 288) that data has been copiedto all targets of the one-to-plural copy relationship, the detectedwrite operation may be completed (block 244, FIG. 5) followingcompletion of the stride-aligned copy source to target operation oroperations for the target or targets of the point-in-time copyrelationship. For example, the write data of the write operation whichhas been written to cache may be subsequently destaged to the copysource following completion of the stride-aligned copy source to targetoperation or operations in a manner similar to that depicted in FIG. 3B.

As explained in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 8, adetermination of whether to perform a stride-aligned copy source totarget operation similar to that depicted in FIG. 3B, may be made inconnection with a safe data commit scan by the safe data commit logic 60(FIG. 2), in which the cache is scanned for tracks of modified data tobe destaged to storage. Accordingly, the safe data commit logic 60 (FIG.2) is configured to initiate (block 314, FIG. 8) a safe data commit scanof cache to identify tracks of modified data to destage to storage.

In accordance with one aspect of the present description, destaging ofthe tracks of modified data in cache may be bypassed in connection withthe safe data commit scan for identified tracks of sequential writeoperations which are candidates for stride-aligned copy source to targetoperations as described above in connection with FIG. 3B. Thus, insteadof immediately destaging pursuant to the safe data commit scan, a taskcontrol block may be generated to control a stride-aligned copy sourceto target operation for such sequential write operation. Subsequent tothe completion of a stride-aligned copy source to target operation, themodified tracks in cache for the sequential write operation may bedestaged to the point-in-time copy source in a manner similar to thatdescribed above in connection with the write completion operation (block244) of FIG. 5 to complete the safe data commit operations.

Referring to FIGS. 2 and 8, the safe data commit logic 60 (FIG. 2) isconfigured to initiate (block 314, FIG. 8) a safe data commit scan ofcache to identify (block 318) tracks of modified data to destage tostorage. In response to identification (block 318, FIG. 8) of a track ofmodified data in cache, the copy source to target logic 214 (FIG. 6) isconfigured to determine (block 322, FIG. 8) whether the identifiedmodified track in cache relates to a point-in-time copy relationshipsuch that the track corresponds to a track of a point-in-time copysource such as the source 50 of FIG. 3B. For example, a modified trackin cache is directed to or corresponds to a point-in-time copy source ifthe modified track when destaged to storage, is destaged to apoint-in-time source. For a modified track in cache which corresponds toa point-in-time copy source, the sequential write detection logic 234(FIG. 6) is configured to detect (block 324, FIG. 5) whether themodified track was written in connection with a sequential writeoperation such that the modified track is part of a sequence ofsequential modified tracks in cache. It is appreciated that such adetermination may be made using a variety of techniques, depending uponthe particular application, as discussed above in connection with block240 of FIG. 5.

If it is determined (block 322, FIG. 8) that the identified modifiedtrack in cache does not correspond to a point-in-time copy source, or ifit is determined (block 334) that the identified track is not part of asequence of sequential, modified tracks, the modified track may besubsequently destaged (block 326) to storage and a determination (block330) is made as to whether all tracks of the safe data commit scan havebeen scanned. If so, the safe data commit scan is complete (block 332).Conversely, if is determined (block 330) that all tracks of the safedata commit scan have not been scanned, another modified track in cacheis identified (block 318, FIG. 8).

If it is determined (block 322, FIG. 8) that the identified modifiedtrack in cache does correspond to a point-in-time copy source, and if itis determined (block 334) that the identified track is part of asequence of sequential, modified tracks written to cache, the taskcontrol block generation logic 250 (FIG. 6) is configured to generate(block 338) a task control block data structure similar to the TCB 218(FIG. 7), to control a stride-aligned copy source to target operationfor the sequence of modified tracks directed to the point-in-time copysource. Having generated the task control block for the stride-alignedcopy source to target operation for the sequence of modified tracksdirected to the point-in-time copy source, the safe data commit logic 60may be configured to skip (block 342) or bypass the sequence of modifiedtracks directed to the point-in-time copy source instead of immediatelydestaging those tracks to storage. For the bypassed tracks of the safedata commit scan, the generated stride-aligned TCBs 218 may bedispatched to perform stride-aligned copy source to target operations ina manner similar to that depicted in FIG. 3B and as described inconnection with blocks 260, 274, 284 and 288 of FIG. 5. Followingcompletion of stride-aligned copy source to target operations for thebypassed (block 342) sequential tracks, the sequential tracks may bedestaged to the point-in-time source in a manner similar to thatdescribed above in connection with block 244 of FIG. 5, to complete thesequential write operations and the safe data commit for those writeoperations.

Once it is determined (block 330) that all tracks of the safe datacommit scan have been scanned, the safe data commit scan is complete(block 332). Conversely, if not all modified tracks of the safe datacommit scan operation have been scanned, another modified track in cacheis identified (block 314) until all modified tracks in cache have beenscanned. A safe data commit scan in cache may be made with respect toall tracks in cache, or on a rank by rank basis, or with respect toother subdivisions of the cache, depending upon the particularapplication.

FIG. 9 is directed to an example of operations for determining whetherconditions exist for preemptive copy source to target operations inaccordance with one aspect of the present description. As previouslymentioned, in one aspect of the present description, the target destagelogic 33 (FIG. 2) may be configured to selectively and preemptivelyperform copy source to target operations, depending upon conditionswhich indicate whether such copy source to target operations remainappropriate or have been obviated by other occurrences.

In one embodiment, a copy source to target operation may be performedpreemptively at any point, from the time a write operation intended fora point-in-time source is initiated, to a time before the track of thewrite operation is destaged to the source which overwrites thecorresponding unmodified data of the source. In another embodiment, acopy source to target operation may be performed preemptively but moreselectively so as to further improve system performance by performingthe copy source to target operation ahead of source destaging so thatsource destaging is not delayed by the copy source to target operation.Conversely by not performing a preemptive copy source to targetoperation in conditions which indicate that copy source to targetoperations may not be appropriate, degradation of system performance byunneeded preemptive operations may be reduced or eliminated.

Referring to FIGS. 2, 6 and 9, preemptive condition monitoring logic 410(FIG. 6) of the target destage logic 33 is configured to determinewhether conditions for preemptive copy source to target operation arepresent, including determining (block 414, FIG. 9) if a safe data commitscan is about to be initiated. A safe data commit scan by the safe datacommit logic 60 (FIG. 2) identifies tracks of modified data in cache forpurposes of destaging the identified modified tracks to storage. Sinceall modified tracks in cache will be destaged to storage which willoverwrite unmodified data in the point-in-time copy sources in storage,it is determined (block 418) that a condition for preemptive copy sourceto target operations is present. In one embodiment, the preemptivecondition monitoring logic 410 is further configured to determine thatconditions for preemptive copy source to target operations are presentan interval of time (represented by the value “delta X”) prior toinitiation of a safe data commit scan of cache to identify tracks ofmodified data in cache to destage to storage.

In response to a determination (block 418) that a condition forpreemptive copy source to target operations is present, preemptive scanlogic 420 (FIG. 6) of the target destage logic 33 can initiate a scan ofmodified tracks in cache to determine if a preemptive copy source totarget operation is appropriate for each modified track in cache. FIG.10 depicts an example of a preemptive copy source to target scan ofcache in accordance with one aspect of the present description. In oneembodiment, the preemptive copy source to target scan of modified tracksin cache may be initiated at least a certain interval of time (delta X)prior to start of the safe data commit scan to provide sufficient timefor the preemptive copy source to target scan and any resultantpreemptive copy source to target operations to be completed beforedestaging of modified tracks to the sources begins as part of asubsequent safe data commit scan.

The preemptive condition monitoring logic 410 (FIG. 6) is furtherconfigured to determine whether conditions for preemptive copy source totarget operations are present as a function of whether (block 422, FIG.9), there is a point-in-time copy relationship between a point-in-timecopy source and a point-in-time copy target, which has modified data inthe cache and if so, whether the point-in-time copy relationship ispersistent. As previously mentioned, a persistent point-in-time copyrelationship is one in which the point-in-time of the copy relationshiphas not changed. An example of a non-persistent point-in-time copyrelationship is one in which the point-in-time of the copy relationshiphas been incremented subsequent to the write operation to cache. It isappreciated that if the point-in-time copy relationship is notpersistent, that is, the point-in-time of the relationship has beenincremented, any modified tracks written to cache for the copyrelationship before the relationship is incremented, belong to theincremented relationship and supersede any corresponding unmodified datain the source. Thus, the corresponding unmodified data in the source maybe discarded by permitting a destage to the corresponding tracks of thesource without preserving the unmodified data of the tracks in apreemptive copy source to target operation. Hence, a preemptive copysource to target operation is not needed and it may be determined thatconditions for preemptive copy source to target operation are notpresent for that incremented copy relationship.

Conversely, if the point-in-time copy relationship is persistent, anymodified tracks in cache that are in the point-in-time copy relationshipdo not belong to an incremented copy relationship and do not supersedecorresponding unmodified data in the source. Thus, the correspondingunmodified data in the source is to be preserved by a preemptive copysource to storage operation before the unmodified data is overwritten bya destage operation to the source. Hence, the preemptive copy source totarget operation is appropriate and it may be determined (block 418,FIG. 9) that conditions for preemptive copy source to target operationare present.

As noted above, in one embodiment, a copy source to target operation maybe performed preemptively at any point in the interval from the time awrite operation intended for a point-in-time source is initiated, to atime before the track of the write operation is destaged from cache tothe source which overwrites the corresponding unmodified data of thesource. Hence, if it is determined (block 418, FIG. 9) that conditionsfor preemptive copy source to target operation are present because it isdetermined (block 422, FIG. 9) that a modified track in cache belongs toa persistent point-in-time copy relationship, the preemptive scan logic420 (FIG. 6) of the target destage logic 33 can subsequently initiate atany time a scan of modified tracks in cache to determine if a preemptivecopy source to target operation is appropriate for each modified trackin cache. However, in one embodiment, such a scan could be initiated atleast a certain interval of time (delta X) prior to start of asubsequent safe data commit scan to provide sufficient time for thepreemptive copy source to target scan and any resultant preemptive copysource to target operations to be completed before destaging of modifiedtracks to the sources begins as part of the safe data commit scan.

The preemptive condition monitoring logic 410 (FIG. 6) is furtherconfigured to determine whether conditions for preemptive copy source totarget operation are present as a function of whether (block 426) thenumber of tracks of modified data in cache which belong to apoint-in-time copy relationship, that is, correspond to a point-in-timecopy source, exceeds a threshold value. It is appreciated that if thenumber of tracks of modified data in cache which correspond to apoint-in-time copy source, exceeds a threshold value, non-preemptivecopy source to target operations performed in conjunction withcopy-on-destage operations, for example, may due to their relativelyhigh number, impose a substantial penalty on system performance. Such adegradation of system performance may be ameliorated by performing copysource to target operations preemptively in advance of destagingoperations such that the destaging operations when eventually performed,need not wait for completion of copy source to target operations beforethe source destage operations may be completed. Hence, in the embodimentof FIG. 9, it is determined (block 418, FIG. 9) that conditions forpreemptive copy source to target operation are present if the number oftracks of modified data in cache which belong to a point-in-time copyrelationship, exceeds (block 426) the threshold value.

A suitable threshold value may be selected using a variety of techniquesdepending upon the particular application. For example, a suitablethreshold value may be expressed in terms of a percentage of the totalcapacity of the cache as a whole or of each rank if scans are performedon a rank by rank basis. An example of a suitable threshold value may be70% or in a range of 70 to 100% of total capacity of the cache or of thecache for a rank, as appropriate.

Here too, if it is determined (block 418, FIG. 9) that conditions forpreemptive copy source to target operation are present because it isdetermined that the number of tracks of modified data in cache whichbelong to a point-in-time copy relationship, exceeds (block 426) thethreshold value, the preemptive scan logic 420 (FIG. 6) of the targetdestage logic 33 can subsequently initiate at any time a scan ofmodified tracks in cache to determine if a preemptive copy source totarget operation is appropriate for each modified track in cache, butpreferably at least a certain interval of time (delta X) prior to startof a subsequent safe data commit scan as discussed above.

Conversely, if it is determined (block 414, FIG. 9) that a safe datacommit scan is not about to be initiated, and it is determined (block422) that the point-in-time copy relationships represented by modifiedtracks in cache are not persistent, and it is determined (block 426)that the number of tracks of modified data in cache which correspond toa point-in-time copy source, does not exceed the threshold value, it isdetermined (block 430, FIG. 9) in one embodiment that conditions forpreemptive copy source to target operation are not present. Accordingly,a scan of modified tracks in cache to determine if a preemptive copysource to target operation is appropriate for each modified track incache, may be bypassed. However, it is appreciated that in otherembodiments, various tests may be added, substituted or removed in adetermination as to whether or not conditions for preemptive copy sourceto target operations are present.

FIG. 10 depicts one example of a scan of modified tracks in cache todetermine if a preemptive copy source to target operation is appropriatefor each modified track in cache. Accordingly, preemptive conditionmonitoring logic 410 (FIG. 6) determines (block 450, FIG. 10) whetherconditions for preemptive copy source to target operation are present asdescribed above in connection with FIG. 9. Preemptive scan logic 452(FIG. 6) is configured to, in response to a determination thatconditions for preemptive copy source to target operation are present,initiate (block 454, FIG. 10) a scan of tracks of modified data in cacheto identify and select tracks of modified data in cache for preemptivecopy source to target operations.

In one embodiment, the preemptive scan logic 452 (FIG. 6) is configuredto identify a modified track of data in cache and determine (block 458,FIG. 10) whether the track of modified data in cache corresponds to apoint-in-time copy source, that is, belongs to a point-in-time copyrelationship. The preemptive scan logic 452 (FIG. 6) is furtherconfigured to, if it is determined that the identified modified track ofdata in cache belongs to a point-in-time copy relationship, alsodetermine (block 458, FIG. 10) whether unmodified data in thecorresponding tracks of the point-in-time copy source has already beencopied from the point-in-time copy source to the correspondingpoint-in-time copy target of the relationship. If not, a preemptive copysource to target operation may be initiated to preemptively copy theunmodified data from the corresponding tracks in the point-in-time copysource to the point-in-time copy target in advance of a subsequentsource destage operation.

As described above in connection with FIGS. 5 and 7, a stride-alignedcopy source to target operation may be performed for sequential tracksof a sequential write operation. Accordingly, the preemptive scan logic452 (FIG. 6) is further configured to determine (block 470) if theidentified track is part of a sequence of sequential tracks of modifieddata. If so, the preemptive scan logic 452 (FIG. 6) is furtherconfigured to cause (block 474, FIG. 10) the copy source to target logic214 (FIG. 6) to perform a preemptive stride-aligned copy source totarget operation, for corresponding sequential tracks of thepoint-in-time copy target. Accordingly, a task control block 218 (FIG.7) identifying a sequence of sequential tracks may be generated in amanner similar to that described above in connection with block 338 ofFIG. 8.

Having generated the task control block for the stride-aligned copysource to target operation for the sequence of modified tracks directedto the point-in-time copy source, the preemptive scan logic 452 (FIG. 6)may be configured to skip (block 478) or bypass in cache the remainingsequential tracks of the sequence of modified tracks for which thesequential task control block was generated, in a manner similar to thatdescribed above in connection with block 342 of FIG. 8. Upon subsequentdispatch of the generated sequential task control block 218, astride-aligned copy source to target operation may be preemptivelyperformed for corresponding sequential tracks as identified by thesequential task control block in a manner similar to that describedabove in connection with blocks 260-288 and 244 of FIG. 5.

Conversely, if the preemptive scan logic 452 (FIG. 6) determines (block470) that the identified track is not part of a sequence of sequentialtracks of modified data, the preemptive scan logic 452 (FIG. 6) isfurther configured to cause (block 482, FIG. 10) the copy source totarget logic 214 (FIG. 6) to preemptively perform a non-sequential copysource to target operation, for a corresponding non-sequential track ofthe point-in-time copy relationship. Accordingly, a non-sequential taskcontrol block 218 (FIG. 7) may be generated for as few as a singletrack, for example. If the preemptive copy source to target operation isfor a single track, the starting track value S (field 254) of anon-sequential task control block 218 (FIG. 7) may identify the singletrack and the number of tracks value N (field 258) may be set to one fora single track non-sequential preemptive copy source to targetoperation. It is appreciated that a variety of formats may be utilizedfor non-sequential and sequential task control blocks in accordance withthe present description. For example, multiple non-sequential tracks maybe identified by suitable fields of a non-sequential task control blockfor a preemptive copy source to target operation.

Upon subsequent dispatch of the non-sequential track task control block,the non-sequential preemptive copy source to target operation may bepreemptively performed. In one embodiment, a non-sequential preemptivecopy source to target operation need not be stride-aligned since as fewas one track may be the subject of the preemptive copy source to targetoperation. FIG. 3A depicts an example of a non-sequential copy source totarget operation for a single track pursuant to a task control blockconfigured for a single track as described above. However, it isappreciated that non-sequential copy source to target operations may bedirected to multiple, non-sequential copy source to target operationsusing one or more task control blocks configured for multiplenon-sequential tracks as described above.

Accordingly, the copy source to target logic 214 (FIG. 6) is configuredto initiate a non-sequential copy source to target operation (FIG. 3A)using a task control block 218 (FIG. 7) configured for a non-sequentialtrack wherein the non-sequential copy source to target operationincludes directing a read operation 484 (FIG. 3A) to a point-in-timecopy source 50 (FIG. 3A) because the data of the read operation has notyet been copied to the point-in-time copy target 54. Accordingly, theread operation 484 obtains unmodified read data from a track of thesource 50 corresponding to the identified track in cache containingmodified data to be eventually destaged to overwrite the correspondingtrack in the source 50.

The unmodified data read from the source 50 pursuant to the readoperation 484 is staged by a stage operation 486 in the cache 28 by thecopy source to target logic 214 (FIG. 6). The copy source to targetlogic 214 is further configured to write in a destage operation 488(FIG. 3A) the unmodified data read from the source 50, to thecorresponding track of the target 54 from the cache 28.

Once it is determined (block 490, FIG. 10) that all modified tracks ofthe cache have been scanned, the preemptive scan is complete (block494). Alternatively, another modified track in cache is identified(block 458) and examined for suitability for a preemptive copy source totarget operation as described above until all modified tracks in cachehave been scanned. A preemptive scan in cache may be made with respectto all tracks in cache, or on a rank by rank basis, or with respect toother subdivisions of the cache.

Following completion of sequential (stride-aligned) and non-sequential(e.g. single track) preemptive copy source to target operations, a safedata commit scan of cache may be initiated by safe data commit logic 60(FIG. 2) to destage tracks of modified data from cache to storage.However, because copy source to target operations have already beenselectively and preemptively completed for modified tracks belonging topoint-in-time copy relationships, destaging of modified tracks topoint-in-time copy sources may proceed without waiting for completion ofcopy source to target operations to preserve the unmodified data ofcorresponding tracks in the source before being overwritten by thedestage to source operations. Moreover, because the preemptive copysource to target operations are performed selectively when it has beendetermined that advantageous conditions for preemptive copy source totarget operations are present, any degradation of system performance dueto such preemptive operations may be reduced or eliminated. Otheraspects and advantages may be realized, depending upon the particularapplication.

The computational components of the figures may each be implemented inone or more computer systems, such as the computer system 1002 shown inFIG. 11. Computer system/server 1002 may be described in the generalcontext of computer system executable instructions, such as programmodules, being executed by a computer system. Generally, program modulesmay include routines, programs, objects, components, logic, datastructures, and so on that perform particular tasks or implementparticular abstract data types. Computer system/server 1002 may bepracticed in distributed cloud computing environments where tasks areperformed by remote processing devices that are linked through acommunications network. In a distributed cloud computing environment,program modules may be located in both local and remote computer systemstorage media including memory storage devices.

As shown in FIG. 11, the computer system/server 1002 is shown in theform of a general-purpose computing device. The components of computersystem/server 1002 may include, but are not limited to, one or moreprocessors or processing units 1004, a system memory 1006, and a bus1008 that couples various system components including system memory 1006to processor 1004. Bus 1008 represents one or more of any of severaltypes of bus structures, including a memory bus or memory controller, aperipheral bus, an accelerated graphics port, and a processor or localbus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example, andnot limitation, such architectures include Industry StandardArchitecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, EnhancedISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) localbus, and Peripheral Component Interconnects (PCI) bus.

Computer system/server 1002 typically includes a variety of computersystem readable media. Such media may be any available media that isaccessible by computer system/server 1002, and it includes both volatileand non-volatile media, removable and non-removable media.

System memory 1006 can include computer system readable media in theform of volatile memory, such as random access memory (RAM) 1010 and/orcache memory 1012. Computer system/server 1002 may further include otherremovable/non-removable, volatile/non-volatile computer system storagemedia. By way of example only, storage system 1013 can be provided forreading from and writing to a non-removable, non-volatile magnetic media(not shown and typically called a “hard drive”). Although not shown, amagnetic disk drive for reading from and writing to a removable,non-volatile magnetic disk (e.g., a “floppy disk”), and an optical diskdrive for reading from or writing to a removable, non-volatile opticaldisk such as a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM or other optical media can be provided.In such instances, each can be connected to bus 1008 by one or more datamedia interfaces. As will be further depicted and described below,memory 1006 may include at least one program product having a set (e.g.,at least one) of program modules that are configured to carry out thefunctions of embodiments of the invention.

Program/utility 1014, having a set (at least one) of program modules1016, may be stored in memory 1006 by way of example, and notlimitation, as well as an operating system, one or more applicationprograms, other program modules, and program data. Each of the operatingsystem, one or more application programs, other program modules, andprogram data or some combination thereof, may include an implementationof a networking environment. The components of the computer system 1002may be implemented as program modules 1016 which generally carry out thefunctions and/or methodologies of embodiments of the invention asdescribed herein. The system of FIG. 1 may be implemented in one or morecomputer systems 1002, where if they are implemented in multiplecomputer systems 1002, then the computer systems may communicate over anetwork.

Computer system/server 1002 may also communicate with one or moreexternal devices 1018 such as a keyboard, a pointing device, a display1020, etc.; one or more devices that enable a user to interact withcomputer system/server 1002; and/or any devices (e.g., network card,modem, etc.) that enable computer system/server 1002 to communicate withone or more other computing devices. Such communication can occur viaInput/Output (I/O) interfaces 1022. Still yet, computer system/server1002 can communicate with one or more networks such as a local areanetwork (LAN), a general wide area network (WAN), and/or a publicnetwork (e.g., the Internet) via network adapter 1024. As depicted,network adapter 1024 communicates with the other components of computersystem/server 1002 via bus 1008. It should be understood that althoughnot shown, other hardware and/or software components could be used inconjunction with computer system/server 1002. Examples, include, but arenot limited to: microcode, device drivers, redundant processing units,external disk drive arrays, RAID systems, tape drives, and data archivalstorage systems, etc.

The reference characters used herein, such as i, j, and n, are used todenote a variable number of instances of an element, which may representthe same or different values, and may represent the same or differentvalue when used with different or the same elements in differentdescribed instances.

The present invention may be a system, a method, and/or a computerprogram product. The computer program product may include a computerreadable storage medium (or media) having computer readable programinstructions thereon for causing a processor to carry out processoroperations in accordance with aspects of the present invention.

The computer readable storage medium can be a tangible device that canretain and store instructions for use by an instruction executiondevice. The computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but isnot limited to, an electronic storage device, a magnetic storage device,an optical storage device, an electromagnetic storage device, asemiconductor storage device, or any suitable combination of theforegoing. A non-exhaustive list of more specific examples of thecomputer readable storage medium includes the following: a portablecomputer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), aread-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROMor Flash memory), a static random access memory (SRAM), a portablecompact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), a digital versatile disk (DVD),a memory stick, a floppy disk, a mechanically encoded device such aspunch-cards or raised structures in a groove having instructionsrecorded thereon, and any suitable combination of the foregoing. Acomputer readable storage medium, as used herein, is not to be construedas being transitory signals per se, such as radio waves or other freelypropagating electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagatingthrough a waveguide or other transmission media (e.g., light pulsespassing through a fiber-optic cable), or electrical signals transmittedthrough a wire.

Computer readable program instructions described herein can bedownloaded to respective computing/processing devices from a computerreadable storage medium or to an external computer or external storagedevice via a network, for example, the Internet, a local area network, awide area network and/or a wireless network. The network may comprisecopper transmission cables, optical transmission fibers, wirelesstransmission, routers, firewalls, switches, gateway computers and/oredge servers. A network adapter card or network interface in eachcomputing/processing device receives computer readable programinstructions from the network and forwards the computer readable programinstructions for storage in a computer readable storage medium withinthe respective computing/processing device.

Computer readable program instructions for carrying out operations ofthe present invention may be assembler instructions,instruction-set-architecture (ISA) instructions, machine instructions,machine dependent instructions, microcode, firmware instructions,state-setting data, or either source code or object code written in anycombination of one or more programming languages, including an objectoriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like,and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C”programming language or similar programming languages. The computerreadable program instructions may execute entirely on the user'scomputer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone softwarepackage, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computeror entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario,the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through anytype of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide areanetwork (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer(for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).In some embodiments, electronic circuitry including, for example,programmable logic circuitry, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA), orprogrammable logic arrays (PLA) may execute the computer readableprogram instructions by utilizing state information of the computerreadable program instructions to personalize the electronic circuitry,in order to perform aspects of the present invention.

Aspects of the present invention are described herein with reference toflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of theinvention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchartillustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented bycomputer readable program instructions.

These computer readable program instructions may be provided to aprocessor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, orother programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, suchthat the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computeror other programmable data processing apparatus, create means forimplementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks. These computer readable program instructionsmay also be stored in a computer readable storage medium that can directa computer, a programmable data processing apparatus, and/or otherdevices to function in a particular manner, such that the computerreadable storage medium having instructions stored therein comprises anarticle of manufacture including instructions which implement aspects ofthe function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram blockor blocks.

The computer readable program instructions may also be loaded onto acomputer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other deviceto cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer,other programmable apparatus or other device to produce a computerimplemented process, such that the instructions which execute on thecomputer, other programmable apparatus, or other device implement thefunctions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block orblocks.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate thearchitecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementationsof systems, methods, and computer program products according to variousembodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in theflowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portionof instructions, which comprises one or more executable instructions forimplementing the specified logical function(s). In some alternativeimplementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of theorder noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in successionmay, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks maysometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon thefunctionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of theblock diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocksin the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implementedby special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specifiedfunctions or acts or carry out combinations of special purpose hardwareand computer instructions.

The terms “an embodiment”, “embodiment”, “embodiments”, “theembodiment”, “the embodiments”, “one or more embodiments”, “someembodiments”, and “one embodiment” mean “one or more (but not all)embodiments of the present invention(s)” unless expressly specifiedotherwise.

The terms “including”, “comprising”, “having” and variations thereofmean “including but not limited to”, unless expressly specifiedotherwise.

The enumerated listing of items does not imply that any or all of theitems are mutually exclusive, unless expressly specified otherwise.

The terms “a”, “an” and “the” mean “one or more”, unless expresslyspecified otherwise.

Devices that are in communication with each other need not be incontinuous communication with each other, unless expressly specifiedotherwise. In addition, devices that are in communication with eachother may communicate directly or indirectly through one or moreintermediaries.

A description of an embodiment with several components in communicationwith each other does not imply that all such components are required. Onthe contrary a variety of optional components are described toillustrate the wide variety of possible embodiments of the presentinvention.

When a single device or article is described herein, it will be readilyapparent that more than one device/article (whether or not theycooperate) may be used in place of a single device/article. Similarly,where more than one device or article is described herein (whether ornot they cooperate), it will be readily apparent that a singledevice/article may be used in place of the more than one device orarticle or a different number of devices/articles may be used instead ofthe shown number of devices or programs. The functionality and/or thefeatures of a device may be alternatively embodied by one or more otherdevices which are not explicitly described as having suchfunctionality/features. Thus, other embodiments of the present inventionneed not include the device itself.

The foregoing description of various embodiments of the invention hasbeen presented for the purposes of illustration and description. It isnot intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the preciseform disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible in lightof the above teaching. It is intended that the scope of the invention belimited not by this detailed description, but rather by the claimsappended hereto. The above specification, examples and data provide acomplete description of the manufacture and use of the composition ofthe invention. Since many embodiments of the invention can be madewithout departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, theinvention resides in the claims herein after appended.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: detecting a sequentialwrite operation to modify a set of data in a point-in-time copy source;and in response to detecting the sequential write operation, initiatinga copy source to target operation which includes: bypassing reading theset of data directly from the point-in-time copy source, and insteaddirecting a stride-aligned read operation to a point-in-time copy targetof the point-in-time copy source to read data beginning at a strideboundary and ending at a stride boundary of the point-in-time copytarget, to force a subsequent redirected operation to the point-in-timecopy source to obtain the read data including the set of data; andwriting stride-aligned data to the point-in-time copy target includingthe read set of data beginning at a stride boundary and ending at astride boundary of the point-in-time copy target.
 2. The method of claim1 further comprising generating a task control block data structure forcontrolling the copy source to target operation, the task control blockdata structure having at least two input values including a startingtrack value and a number of tracks value wherein the stride-aligned readoperation is directed to one or more strides of tracks which include atrack identified by the starting track value followed a number of tracksidentified by the number of tracks value.
 3. The method of claim 2wherein the sequential write operation includes writing to cache amodified set of sequential tracks of data; initiating a safe data commitscan of cache to identify tracks of modified data in cache to destage toa storage; bypassing destaging of the tracks of modified data in cacheof the sequential write operation; and generating the task control blockdata structure for controlling the copy source to target operation, sothat the stride-aligned read operation of the copy source to targetoperation includes tracks of the point-in-time copy target correspondingto the bypassed tracks in cache.
 4. The method of claim 1 wherein thepoint-in-time copy source is in a one-to-plural copy relationship with aplurality of point-in-time copy targets, the method further comprisinginitiating a sequence of the copy source to target operations includinga copy source to target operation of the sequence for each point-in-timecopy target of the copy relationship, and generating task control blockdata structures, each task control block data structure controlling acopy source to target operation of the sequence of copy source to targetoperations, one at a time.
 5. The method of claim 1 wherein thedetecting a sequential write operation includes checking every Nth trackof a write operation and determining whether the write operation is asequential write operation.
 6. The method of claim 1 wherein thedetecting a sequential write operation includes determining whether ahost initiating the write operation has specified the write operation asa sequential write operation.
 7. The method of claim 1 wherein the writeoperation includes writing tracks of data in a cache and the detecting asequential write operation includes inspecting previously written tracksin the cache to determine if the tracks of the write operation are insequence.
 8. The method of claim 1 wherein the write operation includeswriting tracks of data in cache and the detecting a sequential writeoperation includes determining when the write to cache is complete andinspecting the written tracks in the cache to determine if the trackswritten to cache are in sequence.
 9. A computer program product for usewith a host and a data storage system having a storage controller havinga processor and a cache, and storage controlled by the storagecontroller, the storage including a point-in-time copy source and apoint-in-time copy target wherein the point-in-time copy target storesdata in strides, each stride having a beginning stride boundary and anending stride boundary, wherein the computer program product comprises acomputer readable storage medium having program instructions embodiedtherewith, the program instructions executable by a processor of thestorage controller to cause processor operations, the processoroperations comprising: detecting a sequential write operation to modifya set of data in a point-in-time copy source; and in response todetecting the sequential write operation, initiating a copy source totarget operation which includes: bypassing reading the set of datadirectly from the point-in-time copy source, and instead directing astride-aligned read operation to a point-in-time copy target of thepoint-in-time copy source to read data beginning at a beginning strideboundary and ending at an ending stride boundary of the point-in-timecopy target, to force a subsequent redirected operation to thepoint-in-time copy source to obtain the read data including the set ofdata; and writing stride-aligned data to the point-in-time copy targetincluding the read set of data beginning at a beginning stride boundaryand ending at an ending stride boundary of the point-in-time copytarget.
 10. The computer program product of claim 9 further comprisinggenerating a task control block data structure for controlling the copysource to target operation, the task control block data structure havingat least two input values including a starting track value and a numberof tracks value wherein the stride-aligned read operation is directed toone or more strides of tracks which include a track identified by thestarting track value followed a number of tracks identified by thenumber of tracks value.
 11. The computer program product of claim 10further wherein the sequential write operation includes writing to cachea modified set of sequential tracks of data; and wherein the processoroperations further comprise: initiating a safe data commit scan of cacheto identify tracks of modified data in cache to destage to storage;bypassing destaging of the tracks of modified data in cache of thesequential write operation; and generating the task control block datastructure for controlling the copy source to target operation, so thatthe stride-aligned read operation of the copy source to target operationincludes tracks of the point-in-time copy target corresponding to thebypassed tracks in cache.
 12. The computer program product of claim 9wherein the point-in-time copy source is in a one-to-plural copyrelationship with a plurality of point-in-time copy targets, theprocessor operations further comprising initiating a sequence of thecopy source to target operations including a copy source to targetoperation of the sequence for each point-in-time copy target of the copyrelationship, and generating task control block data structures, eachtask control block data structure controlling a copy source to targetoperation of the sequence of copy source to target operations, one at atime.
 13. The computer program product of claim 9 wherein the detectinga sequential write operation includes checking every Nth track of awrite operation and determining whether the write operation is asequential write operation.
 14. The computer program product of claim 9wherein the detecting a sequential write operation includes determiningwhether the host initiating the write operation has specified the writeoperation as a sequential write operation.
 15. The computer programproduct of claim 9 wherein the write operation includes writing tracksof data in cache and the detecting a sequential write operation includesinspecting previously written tracks in the cache to determine if thetracks of the write operation are in sequence.
 16. The computer programproduct of claim 9 wherein the write operation includes writing tracksof data in cache and the detecting a sequential write operation includesdetermining when the write to cache is complete and inspecting writtentracks in the cache to determine if the tracks written to cache are insequence.
 17. A system, comprising: a host configured to initiateinput/output operations; a storage controller having a processor and acache; and storage controlled by the storage controller, the storageincluding a point-in-time copy source and a point-in-time copy targetwherein the point-in-time copy target stores data in strides, eachstride having a beginning stride boundary and an ending stride boundary;wherein the storage controller has a computer program product comprisinga computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodiedtherewith, the program instructions executable by a processor of thestorage controller to cause processor operations, the processoroperations comprising: sequential write detection logic detecting asequential write operation to modify a set of data in a point-in-timecopy source; and in response to detecting the sequential writeoperation, copy source to target logic initiating a copy source totarget operation which includes: bypassing reading the set of datadirectly from the point-in-time copy source, and instead directing astride-aligned read operation to a point-in-time copy target of thepoint-in-time copy source to read data beginning at a beginning strideboundary and ending at an ending stride boundary of the point-in-timecopy target, to force a subsequent redirected operation to thepoint-in-time copy source to obtain the read data including the set ofdata; and writing stride-aligned data to the point-in-time copy targetincluding the read set of data beginning at a beginning stride boundaryand ending at an ending stride boundary of the point-in-time copytarget.
 18. The system of claim 17 further comprising task control blockgeneration logic generating a task control block data structure forcontrolling the copy source to target operation, the task control blockdata structure having at least two input values including a startingtrack value and a number of tracks value wherein the stride-aligned readoperation is directed to one or more strides of tracks which include atrack identified by the starting track value followed a number of tracksidentified by the number of tracks value.
 19. The system of claim 18wherein the sequential write operation includes writing to cache amodified set of sequential tracks of data, and wherein the processoroperations further comprise: safe data commit logic initiating a safedata commit scan of cache to identify tracks of modified data to destageto the storage and bypassing destaging of the tracks of modified data incache of the sequential write operation; and task control blockgeneration logic generating the task control block data structure forcontrolling the copy source to target operation, so that thestride-aligned read operation of the copy source to target operationincludes tracks of the point-in-time copy target corresponding to thebypassed tracks in cache.
 20. The system of claim 17 wherein thepoint-in-time copy source is in a one-to-plural copy relationship with aplurality of point-in-time copy targets, the processor operationsfurther comprising the copy source to target logic initiating a sequenceof the copy source to target operations including a copy source totarget operation of the sequence for each of the point-in-time copytargets of the copy relationship, and task control block generationlogic generating task control block data structures, each task controlblock data structure controlling a copy source to target operation ofthe sequence of copy source to target operations, one at a time.
 21. Thesystem of claim 17 wherein the sequential write detection logicdetecting the sequential write operation includes checking every Nthtrack of a write operation and determining whether the write operationis a sequential write operation.
 22. The system of claim 17 wherein thesequential write detection logic detecting a sequential write operationincludes determining whether the host which initiated the writeoperation has specified the write operation as a sequential writeoperation.
 23. The system of claim 17 wherein the write operationincludes writing tracks of data in the cache and the sequential writedetection logic detecting a sequential write operation includesinspecting previously written tracks in the cache to determine if thetracks of the write operation are in sequence.
 24. The system of claim17 wherein the write operation includes writing tracks of data in cacheand the sequential write detection logic detecting a sequential writeoperation includes determining when the write operation to cache iscomplete and inspecting the written tracks in the cache to determine ifthe tracks written to cache are in sequence.